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Condesa is a neighborhood in
the central borough of Cuauhtémoc in Mexico
City. Nowadays the zone known as Condesa consists
of three colonias: Condesa, Hipódromo and
Hipódromo-Condesa. It is well known for its Art
Deco architecture. It was developed at the turn of the 20th
century (1902) in what was once the Condesa racetrack. The actual
racetrack became a pair of concentric elliptical streets called
Amsterdam and Avenida México. The neighborhood got its name from
the grounds of the old Hacienda of the Countess of Miravalle on which it was
built. The
hacienda's old house still exists as the Russian embassy in
Mexico. The neighborhood is also notable for its
restaurants, bars and sidewalk cafés.

History

Early history

The original Hacienda “Santa Catarina del Arenal” was created by
Juan Hernández Mellado ca. 1610 and eventually came into possession
of the Count of Miravalle in 1704 when it was sold by its second
owner. It was during the first half of the seventeenth century that
it became known as “La Condesa”, since it belonged to the third
Countess of Miravalle, Doña María Magdalena Dávalos de Bracamonte y
Orozco.

The main produce of the hacienda were livestock and pulque. It continued to change hands during the
nineteenth century until it came into the hands of the Escandón
Family. By
this time the hacienda stretched as far as “La Piedad” road on the
east, the road that linked Chapultepec with Tacubaya on the west, the river that ran from
Tacubaya to La Piedad on the south and the national road of the
Chapultepec arches to “Salto de agua” to the north.

Urban development of Condesa

The Escandón Family sold most of the hacienda in 1869 but kept the
hacienda’s house which they eventually rented to the Brazilian
embassy. In 1942 the family sold the house and it became the Soviet
Union embassy.In 1902 the land of the hacienda was owned by the
Banco Mutualista y de Ahorros S. A. which sold it to the Colonia de
la Condesa Corporation, whose shareholders included José Yves Limantour y Porfirio Díaz jr.

The city’s government authorized the development of the new
neighborhood on December 1902 on what is now the Condesa,
Hipódromo-Condesa, Hipódromo and Roma
Sur neighborhoods. However, because of the Mexican revolution, development did not
start until 1924 by the “Compañía Fraccionadora y Constructora del
Hipódromo”. Urban lightning was inaugurated in 1927 and the
construction of the parks, streets and houses began.

In 1910 the Mexico City Jockey Club opened the city’s second horse
racetrack, the racetrack circuit and name was incorporated into the
street design and is the reason why two of the neighborhoods that
compose Condesa are actually called Hipódromo (Spanish for horse
racetrack) and Hipódromo-Condesa. You can still find an old street
sign on the circular street which follows the racetrack circuit now
called Amsterdam with its original name Avenida Hipódromo.

In 1924, PresidentPlutarco Elías Calles opened
Mexico to the largest wave of Jewish
immigration in the country's history. Within four years, 15,000
Jews—primarily Ashkenazis from Eastern
Europe—resettled in the capital. Eventually the immigrants
prospered and moved to Condesa, although the Jewish community has
since moved on to other parts of the city. In addition to
synagogues and community centers, they opened kosher butcher shops
and European-style bakeries.

Since its first days this colonia has had very good
infrastructure with its big parks and tree lined avenues. The two
larger parks are known as Parque
México and Parque España,
although the first one is officially named "Parque José de San Martín". Parque
México has several fountains, a duck pond, and an art deco open-air
theater named after Charles
Lindbergh.

Architecture

Some of the oldest apartment buildings in Mexico City, called
"Edificios Condesa", are located in this neighbourhood. Their
characteristic French neo-classic architecture speaks of
their early 20th century origin. A group of locally known artists
formed by sculptors, painters and actors live there.

Other notable buildings are the Edificio Basurto and the Plaza
Condesa. The first one, was built on a functionalist streamlined style by
architect Francisco Serrano in 1939-1942, is one of the most
beautiful buildings in the city. Having been damaged in the 1985
earthquake it has been restored to its former glory and
maintains it residential character. The second one is a huge
functionalist all steel
building that started construction in the late 40’s early 50’s
occupies a whole block and has never been completely finished. It
has housed (or houses) a movie theater, offices, apartments bars
and restaurants. The building is at the center of Condesa’s night
scene with several bars on its ground floor. It is also notable
because of its all steel structure, since buildings in Mexico city, until recently, were mostly built with
concrete.

The boom in Mexican construction industry at the beginning of the
21st century reached Condesa, which was being packed with minimalist apartment buildings and trendy
lofts of contemporary style. These were built
where old single-family houses used to be.

One of the most famous places in the neighbourhood is Roxy
ice-cream parlour, which remains in its classic simple 60's
decoration style. Its success is given due to the variety of
natural flavours used in the preparation of milk and water-based
ice cream.

Today

Condesa celebrated the 100 years of its existence in 2001 with
parades, public concerts, devealing of sculptures and other
cultural events.

Condesa, with its many small galleries and numerous exhibit spaces,
offers an important space for the expression of the arts. This
neighborhood hosted a small part of the Mexico City Cow Parade from November 2005 until February
2006.

There are several residential developments currently underway in
the area, in hopes that this will encourage an influx of new
inhabitants. However, there is concern that increased property
prices as a consequence of these developments may discourage people
from moving into Condesa.

On April 2006 a new 3,000 square meter cultural center opened on
what once was one of the most emblematic buildings in the Condesa
neighborhood, the Bella Época cinema. The Centro Cultural Bella
Época has the biggest bookshop (Librería Rosario Castellanos) in Latin America, an art exposition area (Galería
Luis Cardoza y Aragón), a small cinema (Cine Lido) for art films
and a coffee shop. The original Art Deco architecture was
preserved.